Just Between Friends
by Animaltalker
Summary: After watching the Law & Order episodes Competence and Corruption, I realized Betty Abrams and Anita Van Buren started with the NYPD at the same time, so this story supposes they are friends from their academy days


_**1991**_ "What are you thinking?" she asked her friend in a scolding voice. 

"When Lennie kisses me I stop thinking," Betty answered her old Academy friend with an almost childish pout. 

"Girl, you've got to get a hold of yourself. It doesn't matter how good this smooth talking partner of yours is in bed, you have your boys to think about and your career as well, don't throw it all away over this man," she lectured Betty like she would a sister. 

"But he needs me," Betty began- 

"What he needs is to grow up and take responsibility for his own life. He needs to own up to his problems, including his alcoholism. And that"s going to be a lot easier for him to do if you and all the rest of his so called friends at the 1-16 stop making excuses for him, and stop covering his ass. And most of all you," Anita stopped her pacing, whirled and pointed a finger in Betty"s face and repeated, "you need to stop sleeping with him!" 

"You know, he may well be God"s gift to women," Anita said and as she paused, Betty had to shake her head in self-deprecating humor over the way she"d gone on and on in describing how much better a lover Lennie was than her husband. 

"He may be cute and charming and the best lover you've ever had, but from everything else you've told me, he"s also a real scoundrel as well," Anita added. 

"Oh Anita, he's not that bad," Betty started to defend her partner and lover. 

"Did you not just get through telling me that he had, and I quote, been married and divorced twice, both times on the grounds of adultery. He is, is he not an inveterate gambler, and an alcoholic, and didn't you say you couldn't get a straight answer out of him about when he started on the force. He has numerous departmental reprimands for cutting corners on investigations and a few IAB investigations of excessive force complaints. You said that when he lost on the ponies he could make it up by hustling pool because he is so expert a player calling him a shark isn't out of line, but it's problematic because occasionally people take exception to his winning all the time and beat him up? Oh and didn't you also say his excellent memory helps him when he plays cards because it helps him count cards, which I'm pretty sure casinos consider a form of cheating, right?" 

"I know you're probably right and I should probably tell him to go chase some other skirt, but he looks at me with those bedroom eyes of his and I melt, besides sometimes he just gets so sad, and I get worried that if I reject him, he'll, I don't know, eat his gun," Betty added trying to sound dramatic. 

"I thought he was Catholic, they don't commit suicide you know," Anita pointed out, not bothering to point out that they didn't divorce either. 

"His Dad was Jewish, his Mom is Catholic, she raised him Catholic, but I'm not sure if it took," Betty said adding that as a counter argument. 

"You make Catholicism sound like an innoculation," Anita said rolling her eyes at her friend. 

"Look whether he's cute, funny, good in bed, what ever; from what you've told me, he's also trouble and you don't need trouble, sister," Anita emphasized her point by tapping her finger on a picture of Betty's boys. 

Betty sighed she knew Anita was right she had to break it off with Lennie and she had to do it sooner than later. "You're right I'll tell him tonight," she said shakily. 

"Betty, tell him before, no make that instead of going to bed with him," Anita told her. 

Betty nodded; she didn't think she could manage to talk right now. 

**_In the Fall of 1993, a favorite cop hangout _**

"Hi Anita, congratulations on your new position! How do you like the 2-7?" Betty said as she reached out her hand to her old friend 

"Thanks Betty. Well, I like it. I was a bit amazed today when I turned and told two of my detectives to go out and run down some leads and they said 'yes ma'am" and just got up and did it. Oh and by the way, remember a couple of years back when I read you the riot act about a certain detective that you got involved with?" 

"Yeah, as a matter of a fact I do. Why?" Betty asked curiously. 

"Well, after having met a slightly older and sober version of the same man, in the flesh. I think, I may have been a bit harsh on you. Whew, how did you resist that guy? I mean even though Lennie Briscoe works with a much younger, much more conventionally handsome man, there's just something about Lennie that I found more attractive, and much more distracting. Oh, am I glad I don't have to work in the field with Briscoe ever day," Anita admitted. 

"Oh my, 'Miss RCA's got nothing on me in the Fidelity department" finally has a chink in her armor does she?" Betty teased. 

"No, not a chink exactly, just a little area where I noticed I could get uhm-what did I say-distracted?" Anita said with a nervous sound in her voice. 

"Yeah well, Lennie Briscoe definitely should come with a warning label that says 'Ladies, prolonged contact has been shown to be hazardous to the health of marriages'," Betty said with an irritated smirk. 

"Amen to that sister," Anita declared as she lifted her drink in a toast with her friend.   



End file.
